


Nancy Callahan. Age Twenty-Two.

by helwolves



Category: Sin City - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-02
Updated: 2005-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1554197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helwolves/pseuds/helwolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He never sits on my couch ’cause he knows he’d probably break it. Marv’s a real considerate guy like that. Not everybody knows it, but I do.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nancy Callahan. Age Twenty-Two.

**Author's Note:**

> There doesn't seem to be a category for comics vs. movie here, but this is comics-based. Movie Nancy doesn't exist to me, though movie Marv was perfect.

He never sits on my couch ’cause he knows he’d probably break it. Marv’s a real considerate guy like that. Not everybody knows it, but I do.

“When I was a little girl...” I start telling him, ’cause he likes to hear me talk. I’m not really great at talking, but I try. Sometimes I can come up with a good story but sometimes it’s just I don’t know what.

Marv looks up at me, one eye almost swollen closed, the other cracked open huge and scary, the white gone red as the blood on his shirt. I should’ve washed that for him. Stupid, _stupid_... He grunts, then spits a wad of darkness into the big wooden ashtray by my foot, taps ash off his crumpled cigarette and nudges my arm. 

“Go on, kid.”

Things’re much easier when you don’t have to talk. Not everybody believes it, but it’s true. Folks think dancing is hard and I just laugh, you know? ’Cause the stage lights make the whole rest of the world go dark — no customers, no Kadie’s, no back alley, no city.

Just me and the music and the lights so bright sometimes I get tears in my eyes.

“I-I had this dog,” I tell Marv. “Good Boy. He lived on the porch and he’d — he was a great guard dog, you know? The best. And so sweet to me. Until those boys, those nasty — ’til they —” My voice breaks like I’m eleven years old again. _Stupid!_

My hands are shaking. Damn. Marv doesn’t seem to mind the way I’m stitching him up crooked. He never does. And here I go again, hot little tears drip dripping onto his banged-up arm. _Damn._ I rinse it one more time, pull the bandages tight, make silent apologies with my fingertips.

“Aw, hell, kid. Don’t.”

I touch Marv’s shoulder and his eyes close again. I try to gather him up but it’s like tugging on a mountainside, until he sighs, relents, lets his head drop. Crushes my leg a little, too, but I’ve had worse things weigh me down before. Far worse things than Marv.

“You got any more brews hidden in that little kitchen there, Nancy?”

I wipe at a few traitorous tears, wincing ’cause I forget again and touch the ugly blue bruise under my eye. “Sorry, baby, I don’t.”

“S’okay, Nancy,” he says. “S’okay.” 

“Marv,” I say, so soft I wonder if he can even hear. “Thank you. For doing that. For —”

He grunts and I go quiet again.

Letting myself relax against the sofa, I start running my fingers through his hair. His breath is hot against my thigh and his hair feels like damp straw and I just keep touching him. Something in his chest rumbles like thunder over the desert. He might be sleeping now but I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

I’m not too good at talking about stuff like that, you know, but I try ’cause he wants me too. Even if sometimes it makes me get all weak and foolish and start crying like this.

I loved that goddamn dog.


End file.
